Lady Winter
by Kaleyanne
Summary: Hiei and Kuwabara: their world is frozen. Their hearts are cold. And all because of the person they both love most.


Lady Winter   
  
A cold breeze blew. It was as if Winter herself had descended upon the world, her sighs of anguish ravishing the land. Icicles were sharp, pointed like knives, ready to cut through your heart. Snowflakes danced to the ground, seeming innocent, but burning to the touch. Burning as only cold could.   
  
A fire demon felt the burn. Cold burned him a way fire never could, never would. He acted as if he liked the cold. As if he admired its unrelenting anger, the way it accepted the cries and pleas for warmth, and only gave more pain in return.   
  
Hiei thought he must be awfully good at lying, if anyone truly believed that.   
  
But Hiei was stirred from his thoughts, as another victim of the sub-zero temperature emerged into the soft moonlight. Wrapped   
  
in an fiery red coat, and topped of with lighter red hair. As if the colors could not be penetrated by the vicious Lady Winter.   
  
Kazuma Kuwabara looked up at the fire demon. His dark eyes were dull, and empty. And had been for a long time. Kuwabara had lost his own fire. Not fire energy, not like what Hiei had, but his fire of life. The fire that made him want to live.  
  
'Am I really so sure of that?' the young human thought, morbidly amused. The tragic event, when Lady Winter had first engulfed their world in endless pain, had hurt them both. The icicle knives were fresh in the two hearts that thought they would never see eye to eye. But the same blood trickled from the figurative wounds. And froze.   
  
"What is it, Kuwabara?"   
  
A question. No insult, no hidden double meaning, no time needed to think up a clever response.   
  
Just a question. No frills or lace.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"You wouldn't be freezing your ass off if it was nothing."   
  
Before, when Lady Winter's smile was gentle, and her words so sweet, Hiei might still have responded like that. But Kuwabara would have chalked it up to boredom, or annoyance back then.  
  
But Hiei just had a heavy heart.  
  
"Needed to get away, be alone. Eh, close enough."  
  
"I could say the same."   
  
The subtle insults were half-hearted, and made no sense. Before the cold winds encircled the two young men, such comments would have been laughed at. Harsher insults would be thrown. Endless wars of who could get in the last word.   
  
Their little Lady Winter had despaired over their petty fights.  
  
Hiei sighed. A melancholy whisper that warmed the air in front of his frowning mouth. But the vindictive Lady Winter would not relent. She could not be defeated. The air cooled again, immediately.  
  
Kuwabara's eyes had not left the smaller one. The only one who truly felt the pain of this loss. The only one who loved the lost as much as he had.  
  
"Ironic, isn't it?"  
  
Hiei knew exactly what the redhead was referring to. "I considered it my personal curse. Of all the humans my sister could choose to love..."   
  
"Your worst enemy."  
  
"Exactly."   
  
Kuwabara sighed. "I loved her, though. She meant more to me than anything else."  
  
"I know you did."  
  
"I'm surprised you're still sane, though," Kuwabara began cautiously. "Even before Botan told me, I knew you loved her, too. Maybe more than I did."   
  
Hiei laughed morbidly. "Who says I'm sane? Who says you are? How long has this winter been?" He shifted in his seat. "I was always jealous. You could be so... free... around her. I didn't know if it was love or idiocy, but I was jealous that you were so easy with sharing your soul with her. But... I... never could..."  
  
A smile touched Kuwabara's lips. Not the bright, goofy grin he'd worn for his Lady Winter, but a shadow. A dark, wispy, twisted thing.   
  
"You had no reason to be, she loved you, too, Hiei." His gloved fists clenched, and were promptly shoved into pockets, before the local greenery felt his wrath. "She was fond of the dark gentleman with the keen gaze, and she loved her phantom brother more than she could ever love some other man."   
  
"Sounds like you were jealous, too."  
  
"Brilliant deduction." The redhead sighed, brushing the snow from his sleeves. "Didn't really have a right to be, though, did I?"   
  
"Is jealousy ever justified?" Hiei was almost leaning of the branch, surprising himself with how intent he was on the conversation. He thought he'd never be able to speak of his precious Lady Winter again. But he was, and with Kuwabara.   
  
"I guess not." The snowfall had increased in the last few moments, and Kuwabara found himself almost covered in the delicate white fluff. Powder snow, was it? He pulled off his glove, and smiled grimly as the snowflake melted on his fingertip.   
  
"We forgot." Kuwabara wiped the water droplet off on his coat.   
  
Hiei nodded, almost imperceptively. "We forgot she wasn't a little doll, frozen in time and meant to be preserved on the highest shelf. She was stronger than that."  
  
"She had been tortured."   
  
Hiei leaned back against the trunk of the tree. "You don't know how much I hate myself for that."  
  
Kuwabara followed his lead, getting some weight off of his tired, cold feet. "I can take a wild guess," he said wryly.   
  
A blood-red gaze, an almost-perfect mirror of their beloved Lady Winter's, was pointed towards the sky, and the source of the snow. "I was careless. I got myself trapped here in the Human World, following a lead. When it didn't pan out, I panicked. I made gamble, stole the Spirit Realm's treasures with Kurama and another thief, and hoped to ransom her, in exchange for the Human Realm."   
  
"Bit ambitious. Even for you."  
  
"I was desperate. I wasn't even sure she was alive."  
  
"I know. I agree." Kuwabara scuffed his thick winter boots against the frozen ground. They were a gift, from his own sister. "I mean, I know I don't act like it, but if anything happened to my sister..."   
  
"Mm. Lot of good that stunt did her."  
  
"Actually, I think it did." Kuwabara looked up at him again. "Doubt Spirit Realm officials would let tales of a captured Ice Maiden reach Koenma if she wasn't directly linked." He exhaled, angrily, like a bull. "Taru-chan had her for what, five years? More?" Kuwabara closed his eyes. "I wish... I wish I'd known that a member of my own species could be such a bastard."   
  
"Hn. Welcome to my world."   
  
"Not very welcoming. Like this damned cold." Anger at old memories surfacing, hatred for himself and his race, Kuwabara clawed at his jacket, aching to rip it apart. Only the knowledge that Lady Winter's thin fingers, able to slip through anything, would clutch at him and choke him, kept the clothing intact.   
  
The redhead chuckled bitterly. "Funny that her element was ice, huh?"   
  
"Hysterical." Hiei continued the dark humor. "Her race, the Ice Maidens, they're known for being downright evil. And she seemed so pure..."  
  
"Yeah, we know Ice Maidens suck. No one in their right mind would..."  
  
The human shut up. Common sense told him that Hiei would scorn any hint of pity. And it was... strangely liberating... to speak with him about this.  
  
For that, the fire demon was grateful.   
  
"She did seem pure." Kuwabara sighed. "That she could be so vicious... I guess she just snapped."   
  
"Torture, longing, power, orphaned at a young age, childhood teasing, light abuse..." Hiei counted off. "Yeah, she definitely might have snapped."   
  
"Didn't help that some rogue Ice Maiden wanted her own Hirui stone factory. That wasn't herself, of course. She wasn't a masochist."  
  
"And of course, went for the one Ice Maiden no one would give a damn for."  
  
"The one we both loved more than life."  
  
"Captured her, and made her cry all over again."  
  
Kuwabara caught another snowflake. The tiny, delicate thing. Harmless. Until massed together. Until Lady Winter gathered her allies, and swirled them together in a blizzard of hate and cold and pain. Cold heightened pain, Hiei and Kuwabara had learned this lesson quickly. Stand outside in the bitter cold, and against bare skin, the slightest rubbing or press was agony. Sheer agony.   
  
But nothing compared to Lady Winter's dagger of frozen blood, the dagger she had thrust into their hearts. The bloody icicle that had pierced them, when they found they were too late. When they reached Lady Winter's prison, and found her crying, crying, crying, soft "chinks!" against the ground signaling the crystalization of her tears.   
  
Kuwabara had raced to her, while Kurama looked over the rogue Ice Maiden's body. "Dead," he had mouthed to Hiei and Yusuke.   
  
The solemn confirmation that their dear, pure Lady Winter had killed wrapped Kuwabara's arms around her, and brought Hiei beside them. The fire demon had knelt before Lady Winter, and whispered to her that it was all right. Kuwabara had agreed, told her that under no circumstances was she guilty. She was justifed.   
  
"No," little Lady Winter had murmured miserably. "No!"   
  
And with a speed only her phantom brother could match, she shoved them both back with an icy blast. Stunned, and almost afraid, no one had been able to stop Lady Winter as she ran from the fortress.  
  
Winter began that day. And hadn't ended since.  
  
"I don't care, Hiei. I love her more than life. I always will."  
  
"It would be hypocritical of me to care, Kuwabara. I just want my sister back."   
  
And deeper in the shadows than either man dare go, Lady Winter herself brought her hands to cover her eyes, and catch the stones that fell.   
  
"Kazuma... Hiei..."  
  
Yukina cried far into the night.   
  
---  
  
According to my Rescue Yukina DVD:  
  
1) Tarukane says he has had Yukina imprisoned for five years.  
  
2) Kuwabara smartasses Tarukane by calling him "Taru-chan."  
  
Hiei's motive for stealing the Spirit Realm treasures is my own theory, but according to a story later in the manga, he did first come to the Human Realm following a lead on Yukina. This is also when he met Kurama.   
  
I honestly don't know if this made any sense, but the jist is-- Bad Ice Maiden steals Yukina-chan. The Boys come to rescue her, but by the time they get there, BIM has tortured Yukina-chan beyond help. She's stronger than Hiei and Kuwa-chan give her credit for. She lasted with Tarukane for five years by cutting off her emotions, and did try to resist with her ice powers. Anyway, Yukina-chan killed BIM, and was so ashamed she ran away. Botan-chan informed Kuwabara about the Hiei-Yukina Issue. And ever since the little Ice Maiden left, it hasn't stopped snowing. 


End file.
